? Lost Planet of the Gods | Main | Ethnography of on-line role-playing games ?
July 25, 2003
Archaeology and nationalism
Zahi Hawass, the recently appointed secretary general of Egypt's the Supreme Council of Antiquities, is zealous in pursuit of his real job of providing symbolic support to the gangsters who run his country. The Flea reported his recent demand for the "return" of the British Museum's Rosetta Stone. And there is more:
On Hawass's shopping list, as well as the stone, are the bust of Queen Nefertiti from the Berlin Museum, the statues of Hatshepsut in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and even the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, one of the most famous landmarks in Paris, which he wants to restore to the Luxor temple, where it was originally one of a pair. And that is just the big stuff. He also wants a 5ft red granite statue of Alexander the Great from Frankfurt museum, as well as 17 items from Norway and four from Japan.
Hawass' threat to se a "different strategy" to claim the Rosetta Stone includes banning selected archaeologists from carrying out research in Egypt. He has already banned the director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin and plans to force all "foreign" archaeological teams to stop work at Giza and Saqqara by 2007.
We are all foreign to the people of ancient Egypt. Hawass and his gangster-government are engaged in cheap nationalism masked as post-colonial outrage. There are many of the usual suspects who will fall for this line as they continue to fall for every crypto-fascist fairy-tale which suits for their masturbatory self-loathing. A comparable stupid example is found in arguments over the "nationality" of the Ice Man. An Australian scientist has used mineral deposits in the cadaver's dental enamel to demonstrate where he had been living. This may be of some scientific interest but seeing as neither Italy nor Austria existed at the time it is the sort of knowledge which should be purely academic.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at July 25, 2003 10:52 AM
Comments
So that's his real job? I've spent all these years thinking that it was to appear on TV in that idiotic hat of his and pretend to be an archaelogist on FOX specials...
Who knew?
;-)
Don't mind me, Hawass just really gets on my nerves.
Posted by: Paul Jané at July 26, 2003 01:03 AM
Whoops, sorry, meant Egyptologist there...
Posted by: Paul Jané at July 26, 2003 01:05 AM
He looks to be just the sort of fascist lickspittle that flock to government funded culture industries everywhere. One of the most distressing aspects of the story is the way his leverage over dig-sites has effectively silenced opposition in the scientific community. Or rather, the way the self-interest of archaeologists has manifestly been of greater importance to many archaeologists than criticizing this blowhard, his policies or the gangster-government for which he works. This strikes me as all too typical of the archaeological community. It was sickening to watch the same soul-sucking bastards who kissed the hands of the Iraqi fascist government criticize the liberators of the Iraqi people. I imagine the kinds of things I write at the Flea would present problems for me if I was to carry out fieldwork in Egypt in the near future. So what? I want to know why I am the only anthropologist I know of who publically criticizes this stuff. I have yet to finish my PhD and do not have a tenured job and am in a tenuous position with regard to the lunatic consensus in some academic contexts. Why don't the big boys with tenure have a word to say about any of this? Perhaps they just do not care. Or perhaps they are so used to being scared and taking direction from governments like the one Hawass represents.
Posted by: Nicholas Packwood at July 26, 2003 09:58 AM
